


still fighting it

by serpentheir



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Fatherhood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Season/Series 04, Sibling Bonding, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, major character injury (not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27278794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentheir/pseuds/serpentheir
Summary: Jughead’s mom says his dad is throwing his life away. Mr. Andrews says his dad is sick. Jughead wants to believe the second one, because if his dad is sick, that means he can get better.He tries to help his dad get better, but he’s not sure how. Sometimes, when his dad comes back late at night and crashes on the couch, after he falls asleep, Jughead picks up his coat off the floor and hangs it on the hook, and helps take his shoes off, too, setting them right next to the front door. Those things, he knows how to fix.the jones family through the years, or: exercises in xenogenesis.
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones, FP Jones II & Jughead Jones, Fred Andrews & FP Jones II, Fred Andrews & Jughead Jones, Jellybean Jones & Jughead Jones
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	still fighting it

**Author's Note:**

> please heed the tags. this fic deals heavily with alcohol abuse, difficult family relationships, and mentions of abuse.  
> this fic came about bc of (probably completely baseless) rumors that post-time-skip jughead is going to be an alcoholic (and by "came about" i mean i heard about it and immediately entered a fugue state for 8 hours and emerged with this). so this is me rubbing my evil little hands all over the concept before the writers can touch it  
> here's the [drawing](https://imgur.com/a/BuxlGIk) mentioned in the first paragraph.

> _Everybody knows_   
>  _It hurts to grow up_   
>  _Let me tell you what_   
>  _The years go on and_   
>  _We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it_
> 
> _And you're so much like me_   
>  _I'm sorry_
> 
> \- "Still Fighting It" (Ben Folds)

4.

Jughead is four years old and his dad is the coolest person in the world. In art class, their teacher tells them to draw a picture of their “hero." Some kids draw Captain America, or Martin Luther King, or Spider-Man. One girl draws Mae Jemison. Jughead draws his dad.

He tries to draw his motorbike, with smoke coming out of the tailpipe like a race car, but he’s not very good at drawing motorcycles, so he crumples up the paper and tries again. He picks a pink piece of paper, because he has a baby sister now, and pink is her favorite color. This time, he just writes it out: _my dad is 7 feet tall and rides a moterbik._ He gives the [drawing](https://imgur.com/a/BO3gPDU) of himself a little crown, like his hat. Whenever the other kids in his class draw their families, they’re all holding hands, so Jughead draws him and his dad holding hands, too. He glues on dried macaroni noodles to make their faces smile.

6.

Jughead hates beer. His dad doesn’t drink it a lot, because sometimes when he drinks too many, his mom will tell him _Be careful. Remember._ Jughead doesn’t know what she means, but he doesn’t ask.

His dad doesn’t drink it a lot, but sometimes he’ll grab a bottle out of the fridge when Jughead’s mom isn’t in the room and wink at him like it’s their little secret. Jughead’s good at keeping secrets.

He tries a sip of it, once, while they’re all watching a movie together in the living room. It’s disgusting. He pulls a face and his dad cracks up, plucking the bottle out of his hand and putting it back on the coaster in front of him.

_See? Told ya you’d hate it._

Suddenly, his voice gets serious.

_Don’t ever get into this shit, okay? You hear me? You don’t need it. Don’t wanna end up like me._

Jughead whispers _you said a bad word_ , and his dad ruffles his hair. He asks Jughead to promise him, promise that he won’t. Jughead says _I promise._

8.

Jughead has a best friend named Archie Andrews. Jughead has never had a best friend before. He thinks he likes it a lot. He likes Archie’s dad, too. He’s really nice. He told Jughead to call him Fred, that _Mr. Andrews_ makes him feel old. Jughead thinks calling adults by their first name feels wrong.

Archie’s dad and his dad were friends when they were younger. They’re friends now, too, Jughead thinks, in the adult sort of way. They have dinner at the Andrews’ house a lot. Mr. Andrews is a really good cook. His dad always offers to bring something, swears he owes him one, but Mr. Andrews always says _you know it’s not like that with me, FP._ After dinner, the grown-ups talk about boring stuff, and Jughead and Archie run around the house, Jellybean toddling along behind them, playing games they make up themselves that neither of them quite know the rules for.

Mr. Andrews knows a lot about Jughead's parents. Jughead can tell because once, when something set them off over dinner, his mom and dad careening into the third argument of the day, Mr. Andrews came up to Jughead in the kitchen and said _you're welcome here whenever you want. Jellybean, too. I_ _f you ever need somewhere to go – if things aren't good at home – don't even need to ask_. Usually, when they fight, Jughead and Jellybean huddle up in bed with pillows shoved over their ears, or watching a TV show with the volume all the way up on their little DVD player, because Jughead thinks there are some things she shouldn't have to hear. The next time it happens, Jughead and Jellybean sneak out and hop the fence next door. Archie's always excited whenever they get to have an impromptu sleepover. Mr. Andrews always cooks pancakes in the morning.

A few days before Christmas, Mr. Andrews has to pick them up from the mall, because Jughead’s dad took them to see the Christmas train display, but after a few minutes, he’d tapped Jughead on the shoulder and told him he was going next door, in the kind of voice that seemed to say _it’s a surprise, it’s for Christmas._

Jughead had watched him cross the street, making his way over to a brightly-lit store with glass windows and lots of posters of colorful bottles.

He doesn’t come back, not even after a whole hour. Jughead doesn’t know where to find him, so even though it makes him feel like a jerk, he has to ask Archie to call his dad. Mr. Andrews shows up only a couple minutes later. He drives a green truck, and he lets Jughead and Archie sit in the front seat together even though they’re technically too young.

Mr. Andrews drops both of them off at Archie’s house and says he’s going to go look for Jughead’s dad. Jughead asks: _how do you know how to find him?_ and Mr. Andrews says _I know where to look_ and ruffles Jughead’s hair. Jughead squirms away, laughing, like always.

He and Archie spend the rest of the afternoon running around the yard, and then lying down in the treehouse when they get too tired to run anymore. It’s cold out. Jughead can feel the winter air biting at his wrists in the gaps where his jacket sleeves don’t quite reach his hands anymore, but it’s worth it to hang out in the treehouse. He likes having a place where only he and Archie can go.

Jughead asks Archie about his dad, about whether he drinks, too. Archie says _yeah, he drinks beer,_ and makes a face. Jughead makes the same face. _Yeah, ew._

Jughead is dying to ask more about Archie’s family, about what his dad does and what he makes for breakfast and what they do on weekends and if they put up a Christmas tree, too, or if they just do the menorah thing. He thinks he wants to know everything about Archie.

Instead, he asks: _Your dad doesn’t...get confused and stuff, does he? He always comes home, right? He doesn’t get angry sometimes and yell at you?_

Archie says _no, he only yelled at me once, ‘cause I almost rode my bike into the street and he said he was scared. And…he always comes home. He has to._

_He has to_ , Jughead thinks. He’s not sure why his dad doesn’t.

11.

Jughead’s mom says his dad is throwing his life away. Mr. Andrews says his dad is sick. Jughead wants to believe the second one, because if his dad is sick, that means he can get better.

He tries to help his dad get better, but he’s not sure how. Sometimes, when his dad comes back late at night and crashes on the couch, after he falls asleep, Jughead picks up his coat off the floor and hangs it on the hook, and helps take his shoes off, too, setting them right next to the front door. Those things, he knows how to fix.

Once, Jellybean wakes up when their dad comes home, startled by the noise. She joins the two of them in the living room and picks up a pillow from the armchair. Making her way back over to the couch, she carefully lifts up their dad’s head, just enough to put the pillow underneath, and kisses him on the forehead.

_Go back to sleep, Jelly,_ Jughead whispers. There are some things she shouldn’t have to learn.

14.

Jughead’s fourteen and his family has to move out of their house. His parents won’t say why, exactly, but Jughead can tell something is wrong. Something changed. They haven’t gone over to the Andrews’ for dinner in a while, and one night, when he comes down to get a glass of water in the middle of the night, he hears his parents arguing. He hides out on the stairs for a few minutes, trying to hear what they’re talking about but only picking up bits and pieces.

His mom’s voice: _Fired. Skipped your meeting. Again. Now this. Did you forget they’re your kids, too._

He hears his dad’s voice, too, but he can’t make out the words.

Jughead is starting high school this year. On the last day of summer vacation, he makes a promise to himself, that during high school – and probably afterwards, too – he’ll never drink alcohol or do drugs. He knows all too well what they can do.

15.

_You think you’re doing this for the kids, but you’re not,_ Jughead’s dad spits as his mom ducks around him through the doorway, carrying the last box out of the trailer. _You’re doing this for yourself._

_We wouldn’t be in this situation if you’d been thinking of anyone other than yourself, FP,_ she replies, sounding more sad than angry. _Call me when you’re ready to be a father again._ His dad puts a hole in the kitchen wall.

Jughead is impressed, in a detached sort of way, at how easily the plaster crumbles.

Jellybean is hiding behind the doorframe. They lock eyes for a few seconds, but he doesn’t know what to say, can’t come up with anything. Jellybean’s eyes are wide, confused. He hopes she’ll forget about some of this when she gets older. There are some things she shouldn’t have to remember.

As they’re loading their stuff into the car, Jughead asks: _when are you coming back?_

His mom tells him the truth: _I don’t know, sweetie._

And then they’re gone, the car stirring up clouds of dirt on its way out of Sunnyside.

* * *

Later that night, Jughead doesn’t even have to see it; he can hear that his dad is drunk. Jughead’s in his bedroom, pillow pressed tight over his ears like he and Jellybean used to do as kids, trying to drown out the crashing and banging coming from the kitchen.

He’d sought refuge in his room when his dad started shoving things into boxes in some kind of backwards revenge against his mom, like getting every piece of her out of the trailer would somehow make her come back.

After a while, the noise dies down, and eventually, it’s silent. Footsteps make their way down the hallway and stop outside Jughead’s bedroom door.

_Jug?_ His dad’s voice asks.

Jughead lets go of the pillow he’s clutching and unlocks the door, opening it carefully, not sure who he’s going to find on the other side of it. His dad, angry and raging, a tornado destroying everything in its path? His dad, apologetic and chummy, asking if he wants to grab dinner at Pop’s? His dad, solemn and sober, using his laying-down-the-law voice?

Turns out it’s none of the above. FP is crying; real tears, not the stiff-upper-lip emotionless kind of crying Jughead has seen him do before. He steps backwards instinctively.

_Can I have a hug?_ he asks, voice thick with tears.

Jughead’s voice comes out barely louder than a whisper. _Okay._

His dad wraps his arms around him and his breath reeks of alcohol. It makes Jughead sick to his stomach. After what feels like a year, he backs away, eyes still red-rimmed. He walks out of the room without closing the door.

The trailer is silent, then, almost suffocatingly quiet. After a few minutes, Jughead figures the coast is clear and heads into the kitchen to get something to eat. He thinks he forgot to eat lunch. And breakfast.

There’s a picture hanging on the fridge that he’s never seen before, tacked up with little silver magnets. It’s a child’s drawing on a sheet of pink construction paper. Jughead realizes it’s a drawing of him and his dad, with semicircle smiling mouths and closed eyes made out of dried macaroni noodles. The shorter figure is wearing a little crown, and next to the drawing, in crayon, it says “my dad is 7 feet tall and rides a moterbik.” It’s signed _Jug_ with a backwards J.

He’s never seen the drawing before. His dad must have found it while rummaging around their limited storage for things he could get rid of, in his quest to send his mom a final _fuck you_. Jughead takes the drawing off of the fridge and turns it face-down, burying it under a pile of random shit in the junk drawer.

There’s not much in the fridge. A couple six-packs of beer, a bag of shredded cheese, and some tortillas of questionable quality and age. He’d rather eat a shitty quesadilla than starve, so he throws some tortillas into the microwave, shredded cheese in between, wrapped in a paper towel like his mom taught him.

Once it’s done, he sits down at the kitchen table. The hole his dad punched in the wall is next to him as he eats, gaping like a wound. Jughead sticks out his hand, making a fist and fitting it into the hole.

FP is asleep on the couch in the middle of the living room. It looks like a tornado hit their house: the coffee table is upended, the wall decorations are askew, and coats and old records litter the floor.

Jughead stares down at his father’s face. For the first time in his life, the thought rings loud and clear through his head: _I never want to be like you._

* * *

Three weeks later, FP is pleading with Jughead, swearing he meant to hit the wall. He has terrible aim when he’s drunk. Jughead has a bruise swelling up on his left shoulder.

It hurts to move his arm, but he hefts his backpack onto his shoulder anyways, wincing at its weight. He leaves that night.

On the way to the drive-in, he wonders if some people are proud of their dads.

_When are you going to come back?_ he asks himself. His mom’s voice echoes in his head: _I don’t know._

16.

Things slowly start to get better. FP starts to get better. Jughead comes back to the trailer for breakfast with his dad, and there’s a big white spot of plaster where the hole in the wall used to be.

They have dinner with the Andrews’ again, for the first time in forever. It’s a little stilted, the conversation bordering on uncomfortable, and both families are smaller, now, but it’s as close to _old times_ as Jughead has felt in a while. Archie squeezes his hand under the table and he squeezes back.

That night, Jughead tells his dad about how his mom and Jellybean are doing, how mom’s going back to school for her GED and Jellybean’s getting into classic rock – oh, and Jellybean wants to go by JB now, thinks it sounds cooler. His dad is quiet, just lets him talk, and Jughead realizes he’s missed having someone to listen to him.

He glances down and realizes his dad is asleep. He shoves down the swell of anger-disappointment that rises up in him, and starts to unlace his dad’s shoes instead. He sets them right next to the door.

* * *

Jughead moves back in with his dad. All his stuff fits in a single backpack, so it’s less like _moving_ and more like _settling_. He tosses his backpack onto the bed and returns to sit down at the kitchen table, the sharp edges of the chair digging into his back.

Something pink catches his eye on the front of the fridge. It’s that drawing he made as a kid, the one he’d hid in the junk drawer months ago. He fixes the magnets holding it up, straightens it out and puts one in each corner so it’ll stay up.

That night, eager to feel like he’s part of a family again, Jughead washes all the dishes and offers to take out the trash. He lugs both bags across Sunnyside to the dumpster. When the first bag hits the ground, he hears glass shattering. He throws the second bag harder, trying to make the crash louder. It is.

17.

His mom and JB move back in. The Joneses are a family again, with a nice house and everything. The new one is big, with more than enough room for all of them, and grass lawns in the front and back. The newness of it all – the honeymoon phase – lets him believe for a while that maybe they really _are_ a family, not just four fucked-up people playing house on the right side of the tracks.

The illusion doesn’t stick around nearly as long as he’d wanted it to. On the surface, things are good – better than they’ve been in a while.

But then he finds out his mom only came back so she could cook drugs in their old trailer. And then JB almost dies, and then he watches his mom get into a knife fight with a woman who nearly killed him. When he starts finding crushed-up empty cans hidden under the couch, all he can think is _at least it’s not drugs. Thank god it’s not drugs._ The devil you know, and all that.

And then Fred Andrews dies, and FP refuses to talk about it.

Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, Archie tells him _Jug, I miss my dad._ Jughead can’t think of anything to say except _me too._

Jughead comes downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water and finds FP standing in front of the open fridge door. The lighting on his face is harsh and ghastly, fluorescent bulbs casting shadows that make his face look hollow. He raises a bottle to his lips. Jughead backs away, back up the staircase, careful to step on the edges of the stairs so they don’t creak.

It happens again. And again. He stumbles in on his dad standing somewhere, staring off blankly into the distance, sometimes looking at the yellow house next door and sometimes looking at nothing at all.

* * *

When JB turns fifteen, Gladys and FP get her a motorcycle of her own. It’s a beat-up little thing, and she’s only allowed to ride it to and from school, but she loves it. The gas tank and fenders are red, her favorite color. That night, she and Jughead sneak out for a secret motorcycle-riding lesson.

They speed down the highway, pitch black and empty of all cars, and Jughead can hear her shouting _WOOOOO!_ from a hundred feet behind him, despite the wind. Jughead feels the sound reverberating in his skull. He wants to yell something, too, just to see what it feels like, but he doesn’t.

* * *

For his biology midterm, he has to write a paper about xenogenesis. Jughead hadn’t been listening in class, and he has to look up what the word means.

_Xenogenesis: the supposed production of offspring markedly different from either parent._

His teacher tells them to write an argumentative essay about whether they think it’s possible.

He pulls out his notebook, and on the bottom of an empty page, he writes _I hope so_. He tears it off and sticks the shred of paper in his pocket.

He forgets to write the paper. It’s senior year and he’s failing English (and the rest of his classes) for the first time in his life and he’s not going anywhere, can’t even bring himself to try anymore, so it doesn’t matter. Nothing does.

18.

Just when it seems like things can’t get worse, they do. He comes back from the dead and pretty soon starts wishing he hadn’t. He loses Betty and Archie in one fell swoop.

He’s got nothing else left to lose.

He comes home and heads to the fridge, not bothering to turn the lights on. The fridge in their new house is stainless steel, which means magnets don’t stick to it. He grabs a can of beer, prying it out of the six-pack’s plastic ring, and cracks it open.

He still fucking hates beer. Hates the way it makes your breath reek. Hates the way the smell hangs around, permeates into all the soft places in the house. But when he drinks enough of it, he feels it kick in, and he understands. He hates liquor, too, but he finds out that if you drink it quick enough and chase it with something, it doesn’t burn too bad, and it works even better.

_If your whole family fell off the wagon, would you fall, too?_

Not like there’s anyone around to care. Finally, he’s found something that works better than writing, better than screaming into a pillow or punching a wall. After enough shots, he starts wondering if this is how he’s _supposed_ to feel, how _normal_ people feel all the time. Not wrung-out like a dry rag after every social interaction, not second- and third-guessing every single thing he says, not scared.

He doesn’t talk to FP about it. Figures he already knows, or if he doesn’t, he doesn’t need to. FP has a drinking _problem_ ; he’s an alcoholic. Jughead isn’t an alcoholic. He has it under control.

He keeps it to weekends, so it doesn’t fuck with his performance in school. Then Fridays become part of the weekend, and then Monday mornings, when he stays up too late on a Sunday night and the buzz hangs around.

He starts bringing a water bottle into class, full of whatever clear liquor he can get his hands on. Everyone else in his grade has senioritis, so the teachers don’t really give a fuck if the students pay attention or not, and Jughead figures he can get away with it. Tells himself it doesn’t matter.

_If you’re headed towards a dead end, who cares if you crash the car?_

* * *

In English class, he gets into a fight with some asshole whose name he doesn’t even know, for arguing something about the importance of censorship. His teacher is shocked. Says she doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. She sends him to the guidance counselor’s office, where he’s stuck staring at the bookshelf full of pamphlets about teenager-appropriate topics like contraception and cocaine.

He swipes the one about “adverse childhood experiences” and reads through the questionnaire on the back while he waits for the counselor. In his head, he checks off all the ones that apply to him. He gets a seven out of ten. _The first test I’ve passed all semester_ , he thinks.

His meeting with the counselor goes the same way they always do. She asks if he’s having problems at home, to which he says no. She asks if he ever feels hopeless or depressed, to which he says no. She asks if his parents can pick him up so he can go home early, to which he says _I’ll walk_.

That night, he ends up at Sweet Pea’s place, and Jughead relays the story to him, Fangs, and Toni, knowing they’re probably the only people who will be able to laugh about it with him. One of the older Serpents has family over from out of town, and someone says they’ve got weed, so the four of them wander over. Jughead lets himself have a good time. Tells himself he deserves it.

Strangers are suddenly interesting. Parties are suddenly tolerable. He laughs louder than he ever has before, hard enough that it makes his stomach hurt, and if all he has to give in exchange is a few minutes spent puking purple liquid into god-knows-who’s toilet, it seems like a pretty fair deal.

19.

Jughead turns nineteen and his birthday passes without much fanfare. Without any at all, actually. There’s no one left to rope him into attending some godawful party. He tells himself that’s how he prefers it.

That weekend, he’s at someone’s trailer in Sunnyside, playing a game with himself to see if he can black out for the third night in a row, when, a little after 2AM, he gets a call. The voice on the other end is crackly, hard to make out, so he steps outside.

_Are you Jughead Jones? Is Forsythe Pendleton Jones II your father?_

_Yes, yes,_ he answers. _What did he do?_

She says she’s a nurse at Riverdale General. Her voice is so soft, it makes him want to throw up. Soft like Betty’s was during their last conversation. The kind of voice that says _I’m about to hurt you, and there’s nothing either of us can do to make it better._

So she tells him.

FP was on his motorcycle, going above the speed limit on the freeway out of Riverdale.

His blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit when he hit the guardrail.

He’s in surgery now. The doctors don’t know if he’ll make it.

Jughead hangs up and heads back inside.

Without a word to anyone, he swipes a forty off the table and drinks most of it, alone, in a lawn chair in the backyard.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up the next morning with vomit on his shirt, a throbbing headache, and a taste in his mouth like something crawled into his throat and died.

He checks his phone. It’s eight in the morning. No missed texts.

There’s a few shots’ worth left in the forty, so he tucks it into his jacket and takes it home. The walk back to their house is miserable. The sun feels unusually bright and cold, the wind biting through his jacket and pricking at his exposed wrists like so many needles.

The house is empty and silent, the effect compounded by all the extra space. He walks around the first floor, trying to find a place to stash the forty, because putting it in his room – Betty’s old room – feels, somehow, like sacrilege.

He decides on one of the cabinets under the TV; no one uses DVDs anymore so they’re always empty, and no one’s likely to go rummaging through them. He opens the door and finds a stash of bottles, all at least half-drunk, already occupying the space. He's gotten used to finding FP's hiding places. He doesn't bother trying to fix things when FP stumbles in through the door, late at night, anymore. FP probably doesn't even remember those nights, doesn't know about all the times his son had to be the adult instead of him. And maybe, Jughead thinks, they'd never gotten much farther than that.

Later that day, some of the other Serpents knock on the door and ask if he wants to come visit FP in the hospital with them, to make sure there’ll be someone by his bedside when he wakes up. Jughead says _no, thanks,_ and they don’t ask questions. _“If” he wakes up,_ he doesn’t say.

One of the Serpents tells Jughead that he took the remains of FP’s bike to the junkyard, and Jughead feels a dull swell of anger somewhere within him, under several layers of haze. He would’ve probably done the same thing if he’d had a say, but FP is _his_ fucking dad.

Jughead decides to finish off the rest of the forty, that way he won’t have to find a place to put it. He doesn’t remember the rest of the afternoon. Not even enough to call it a _blur._ It’s just gone.

* * *

The next thing he knows happens for sure is that he’s awake and it’s nighttime, and something is jostling his legs. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he realizes that he’s home, lying on the couch.

Jellybean is sitting on the other end of the couch, unlacing his boots and gently taking them off one at a time. It takes him a second to process his surroundings, and then a wave of nausea rolls through him at the sight.

“JB, stop! Stop, please,” he begs, yanking his legs away and backing into the corner of the couch away from her, back pressed up hard against the armrest. She’s staring at him silently, hands still outstretched in midair, grasping at nothing as her eyes start to fill with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says, trying to unclench his muscles and slowly moving closer to her again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out at you like that.” He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he’s instinctively wiping away a tear, even as more start to fall. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, and she reaches out for him at the same time that he reaches for her. He buries his face in JB’s shoulder and hugs her tighter than he thinks he’s ever hugged anyone in his life.

In that moment, something clicks. He’s been pitying himself for years, thinking no one else could ever possibly understand what he’s going through, but JB has been there the entire time. Dealing with all the same shit, so much younger than him, too. Three years isn’t all that much, but it might as well be a lifetime. If someone had understood what was going on when he was sixteen – if someone had talked to him about it – maybe he would’ve gone somewhere after all. Maybe he would’ve been able to write that biology paper.

There are some things she shouldn't have to do alone.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeats, clinging onto her. He can feel her crying, too, tears leaking into the fabric of his t-shirt. “It’s not your fault.”

He’s all but missed the last few years of her life. He doesn’t know her favorite band anymore, or the names of her best friends, or where she goes when she needs to get away from home.

He wonders if it’s possible to get to know someone again even if you’ve known them your whole life. He hopes so.

He opens his eyes and, despite the tears, his vision is clearer, steadier than it’s been in a while. When he glances around the room, everything stays in its place. He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry—” The words get stuck in his throat, but he forces them out, voice raspy. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

“I missed you,” JB whispers back.

“I’m gonna do better, okay? I’m gonna get better,” he says.

“I know,” JB says. “It’s not your fault.”

“Is Dad gonna be okay?" she asks.

Jughead tells her the truth: "I don't know." He wishes he could tell her anything else.

"Okay," she says softly, and her quiet, resigned acceptance rings familiar in Jughead's ears. "Promise you won’t end up like him," she whispers. "Please.”

“I promise,” Jughead says, and this time, he believes it.

> _The years go on and_   
>  _We're still fighting it, we're still fighting it_   
>  _You'll try and try and one day you'll fly_   
>  _Away from me_

**Author's Note:**

> as always you can find me @jugheadology on tumblr! (btw - exit wounds chapter 2 is still coming soon! sometimes u just need to write a completely unrelated oneshot so u can keep up ur momentum).  
> if you enjoyed the fic and/or have Thoughts about it, drop a comment below! thanks for reading <3


End file.
